tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-345118062017-09-08T16:34:41.166-07:00Blog from the heart of IDCianLearnings and experiences of a DesignerKumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.comBlogger204125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-72667025988835977572015-05-01T04:01:00.001-07:002015-05-01T04:01:33.723-07:00New Innings<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">What started as a small rumbles of experiments in digital space had grown into a business setup - OoBI. And it got acquired last month by a Real Estate online portal PropTiger.<br /><br />This marks the new beginning of next innings.</div>Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-36626324848776680062013-03-23T22:15:00.000-07:002013-03-23T22:15:48.563-07:00Design for Startups<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Newborns, infants are like blank slates. They either learn a lot on their own. And a lot is derived from elders. Whether true of false the learning from elders sets the basis of what infants are going to accumulate and comprehend.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Startups are like infants in industry. To make an serious impact of Design in industry we need to nurture it right from infancy. Hence it becomes very important that Design becomes and integral part of startup ecosystem. However currently Design is perceived as a short term goal which are a point in lifecycle of a product/company comes to halt and the same state carried forward. The way product/company evolves its functionality will also evolve and so will be the complexity. And hence the role of Designer becomes critically important in the infancy phase of startup to lay the right foundation.</span></div>Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-871534043210295432012-03-24T22:01:00.002-07:002012-03-24T22:10:21.115-07:00After long timeI am visiting my own online diary after very very long time. And it had taken really long thoughts for me to come back and start writing. <br />I have been busy with work and life.<br />And that means learnt a lot. It was all going in head waiting to come out.<br />And when I start writing I am unable to decide what to write. There is so much of it that I have to sit back again and decide. And in times where microblogging has taken up importance than long paras it becomes rather more difficult. Before writing this I did see what others (those whom am following) have written. And to my astonishment even they (who are regular bloggers) haven't posted since almost a year. Well is this a change that we are seeing.<br /><br />From a Designers perspective it is very important to understand the psychology shift of users and bloggers. They have moved to a medium which is more close in their vicinity. Users always resort to something that's immediately available to them and try to get their work done as much as possible from that closest object/medium. With the onset of smartphones and cheaper dataplans, users have started blogging or rather giving status updates from mobile itself. Unless long blogging/writing is earning you bread, its highly unlikely that you'll even open a blogger and post.<br />This also explains the success of twitter, pinterest, facebook. Successful will be the one which allows normal users to bring their small nuggets that they have posted at different places and show up as one big post.<br /><br />These are times of electronic publishing.Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-86722939626481978142011-05-19T02:35:00.000-07:002011-05-19T02:44:41.266-07:00Live from Space<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I was watching some show on Youtube today and found this tiny little header at the top of youtube page which read that I can talk with the astronauts in the space LIVE.</span></div><div><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kr3BNhGohPE/TdTl9AVexoI/AAAAAAAACXI/lppBYwGqMPM/s320/livefromspace.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 198px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608360272207988354" /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >Endeavour is the space shuttle mission being carried out right now for installation on International Space station. Find out more at <a href="http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=0&amp;pz=1&amp;cf=all&amp;ned=in&amp;hl=en&amp;q=endeavour&amp;oq=endea">Endeavour news</a><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >This is a great moment for common man to get to know what is it like to talk to astronauts in space live.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >Post your questions at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/pbsnewshour?feature=ticker">http://www.youtube.com/pbsnewshour?feature=ticker</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WVLtBUzM_t0/TdTmQjMsEUI/AAAAAAAACXQ/MdefZKQpOHk/s1600/live.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 215px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WVLtBUzM_t0/TdTmQjMsEUI/AAAAAAAACXQ/MdefZKQpOHk/s320/live.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608360607983866178" /></a></span>Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-90879530505711079152010-11-13T22:54:00.000-08:002010-11-13T23:03:54.818-08:00Design : Practice not just theory<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/TN-IWxlpS3I/AAAAAAAACTs/-m5HL-t22uA/s1600/Image0180.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/TN-IWxlpS3I/AAAAAAAACTs/-m5HL-t22uA/s200/Image0180.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539295991538731890" /></a><br />Well Design not necessarily means order. <div>Randomness is an equal contender of being a good Design. </div><div>Important aspect of good design is a pattern. A pattern that we have seen somewhere and if we see it again we are sure to relate and recognize and most probably remember.</div><div><br /></div><div>Take for example the simple dressing that I did for my food. I cut these fruits and put it on plate in some pattern (circular here). And later if you happen to see a webpage or a print on sari which has similar sort of structure/layout your brain will immediately bring forth this pattern and you'll make a relation. </div><div><br /></div><div>As a Designer you have to keep practicing these traits and everyday routine and that's how it'll get imbibed in your brain, your subconscious mind at least.</div>Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-64436436172993219762010-11-09T20:09:00.001-08:002010-11-09T20:09:51.502-08:00Prototyping Interaction with Video Scenarios<img style="visibility:hidden;width:0px;height:0px;" border="0" width="0" height="0" src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEyODkzNjIwNjAxNTkmcHQ9MTI4OTM2MjEzMjk1OSZwPTEwMTkxJmQ9c3NfZW1iZWQmZz*yJm89MzY*ZWZlMjgxYWYx/NGI*NThlNWY4ODRhOTFjM2ViNGImb2Y9MA==.gif" /><div style="width:425px" id="__ss_5699574"><strong style="display:block;margin:12px 0 4px"><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/changeorder/video-storyboarding-v7takehome" title="Prototyping Interaction with Video Scenarios">Prototyping Interaction with Video Scenarios</a></strong><object id="__sse5699574" width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=videostoryboardingv7takehome-101107235629-phpapp01&amp;stripped_title=video-storyboarding-v7takehome&amp;userName=changeorder"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed name="__sse5699574" src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=videostoryboardingv7takehome-101107235629-phpapp01&amp;stripped_title=video-storyboarding-v7takehome&amp;userName=changeorder" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><div style="padding:5px 0 12px">View more <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/">presentations</a> from <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/changeorder">David Sherwin</a>.</div></div><script src="http://b.scorecardresearch.com/beacon.js?c1=7&amp;c2=7400849&amp;c3=1&amp;c4=&amp;c5=&amp;c6="></script>Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-55465192469875549772010-10-11T22:52:00.000-07:002010-10-11T23:02:51.748-07:00Persuasion - one of the qualities of a designer<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://stevelummer.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/change-2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://stevelummer.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/change-2.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><div><br /></div>As a designer, our role is to convey the message using the most suitable medium. Medium may not be perfect, but it at least eases the task of end user to perceive the message. And as a designer though our prime focus is on end user, skipping needs and greeds of stakeholders may bring havoc. So how do you handle those situations wherein what you anticipated, rather inferred from research and user studies doesn't sound good to stakeholders. They don't see the value and you are sure that it is the correct way.<div>You have to persuade them. Either being nice and polite or strict showing consequences. And what type of consequences? You might think of terminating the project and vowing not to work with such clients anymore. But take a pause and think where the problem is. Most of the time its communication gap. They assume that you'll assume the same thing they assumed ! Stumped.</div><div>But literally they always think that the product is going to take the form they have assumed cause, they have been talking to you. As a designer you should have the skills and capability of taking out the unsaid from the mind of your stakeholders/users. They can't perceive or see what you can and its true vice versa too.</div><div>So based on my experience, I would say be persuasive in nature. Provide enough evidence. Statistics might not make sense but a story would. And this soft skill will not only help your professional life, but a personal one too.</div>Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-7584521276946462862010-10-07T02:51:00.000-07:002010-10-07T03:01:10.015-07:00Human pattern<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.echostudiochicago.com/projects/images/window-on-the-world/window-on-the-world.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 480px; height: 360px;" src="http://www.echostudiochicago.com/projects/images/window-on-the-world/window-on-the-world.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Image from : http://www.echostudiochicago.com/sustainability/window-on-the-world</span><br /><div><br /></div>Remember as a child we always wanted to take up that window seat be it travelling in bus, train, car or even at home. We used to love to sit at window. But we never noticed this behavior pattern. Today while going through a presentation on Search and Discovery pattern I came across following,<div><br /></div><div>Window Place: Everybody loves window seats, bay windows, and big windows with low sills and comfortable chairs drawn upto them. - Christopher Alexander in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Construction-Environmental/dp/0195019199">Pattern Language</a></div><div><br /></div><div>So here is my take on the design aspect of this pattern.</div><div>Psychologically human feel comfortable in peeking outside their small world. They don't want to get confined in that small space. However they don't want to plunge too in that big world. Small world is cozy and comfortable for them. A window provides them a way to be in their comforts and still take a look at the big world around.</div><div>You Interface should be something similar to this. User don't want to get into the large world. They need comfort and coziness. However they want to browse through the information. As a designer we should be presenting the complex information to user the way they see world from their window.</div>Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-72468246424328397272010-10-05T21:03:00.000-07:002010-10-05T21:43:58.887-07:00Design Experience or Design FOR Experience - 1User Experience Design. This 3 word title looks sounds great. Ask any designer and they'll say this is what they want to do or be.<div>It all started with Industrial design in the beginning. Then it was Human Factors Design (HFI) where users' interaction with the machine - the actual physical machine with all those levers, pulleys, switches and meters were studied. Then with introduction of digital media and technology it bifurcated into Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Interaction Design. Designers now specialized in how user interacts with virtual objects constrained in one small screen. All those files, folders, Desktop and blah blah came into existence. With the advancement of technology this tiny little space got more power and technologists started putting more and more stuff in it. It became really hard for an end user to perceive what is inside and to conceive their task effectively. It wasn't race against time, it was more about not confusing the user. For the user of the system its like a maze wherein they have to anticipate what can come next. This cannot be left on mere guess work. Oh I started preaching design.</div><div>Coming back to actuals. Now the media and technology and so Information consumption is not just limited to one device/media/platform. You get same information in different format on different devices. Television, Computer - PC/laptop, Mobile phone and now Fridge, Washing machine, audio deck in car. And if all start delivering different interfaces to the user, there'll be no reason for him/her to continue using a service.</div><div>There comes the experience. As a designer we are responsible for designing experience of end user. But wait. We don't design experience because it largely depends on context, user and the goal and it is very dynamic. However we can design small artefacts to enhance the experience of user. </div><div><br /></div><div>So it is designing for experience.</div><div><br /></div><div>This post was more about arriving at the distinction. Next post will talk more about how do we Design for experience of users.</div>Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-82556094784582311342010-07-22T09:02:00.000-07:002010-07-22T09:03:31.085-07:00ShiftedSo I have moved to Bangalore.<br />And that starts a new phase in my life.<br />Hope it has lot more to offer than my imagination.Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-67623004357501487162010-04-26T22:00:00.000-07:002010-04-26T22:27:20.951-07:00We should play gamesI am a huge fan of computer based games. Not that I don't play outdoors, but with time I have embraced computer games as my favorite pass time. Playing with my kid is lot more fun and enriching, but computer games give me direction in which our future interaction with computers is heading. More and more devices and software and in the core information are becoming tangible and graspable. Future lies in having a system where you can easily sense the appropriate information of the context you are in. And when I say computer based games, they are not just limited to screens. Nintendo Wii is an excellent example of out of screen games, which is marvelous combination of physical and virtual environment. So are Sony's gesture based game control and the latest in news is project Natal by Microsoft. Natal is an excellent example of how gaming is taken a step further to take advantage of computational power to utilize virtual information in a tangible manner.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S9Z0Xk3E76I/AAAAAAAACO0/cuUKR7XTQaQ/s1600/milo.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S9Z0Xk3E76I/AAAAAAAACO0/cuUKR7XTQaQ/s200/milo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464683146241175458" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Project Natal by Microsoft</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S9Z0XAZeYTI/AAAAAAAACOs/0C3VidU8R2U/s1600/wii.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 180px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S9Z0XAZeYTI/AAAAAAAACOs/0C3VidU8R2U/s200/wii.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464683136453337394" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Nintendo Wii game setup</span><br /></div><br />Take for example Google maps open on a mobile device. If you open google maps on any mobile and tag your current location it'll automatically zoom to your current location and show information around you. May be based on your previous searches it shows sequential information. If you have been searching for restaurants in past on your laptop/pc and/or mobile on google maps, next time you do a search on your mobile it may/will automatically provide you with restaurants information around you. So you are in a game.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S9Z0z1NrnuI/AAAAAAAACPE/dEhoxa1p-SE/s1600/Project+IGI+4.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S9Z0z1NrnuI/AAAAAAAACPE/dEhoxa1p-SE/s200/Project+IGI+4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464683631667289826" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S9Z0ze_Gj7I/AAAAAAAACO8/11GsgLukkjI/s1600/Project-IGI_3.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S9Z0ze_Gj7I/AAAAAAAACO8/11GsgLukkjI/s200/Project-IGI_3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464683625700560818" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Project IGI game screenshots<br /></span></div><br />A game is nothing but consumption of information in a context which is realistic. I have been playing project IGI. It's a third person, strategy based, shooter game. Information in there, is real like a physical world. You don't have dashboard or graphs or table to play with. you have actual physical objects. And once you are in game you will just play it rather than figuring out what's what? It's quite natural. Just see how lot of information weather, life of soldier, ammunition available, light conditions, time of day etc. can be easily figured out just by looking at the screen. It's real and natural.<br /><br />If we take scenario of enterprise applications there has been lot of efforts in bringing the complexity of UI down to natural usage and very small amount of time investment to learn them. One way to achieve this is to create a game like scenario and then let the users (system admins, CEO etc.) play with the tangible information about outside world in the same fashion. Challenge is to figure out a way to represent the complex virtual information and relations between them in more natural way. Hence comes data visualization and mapping part of Design. It's altogether a separate topic in itself.<br /><br />So in a nutshell if you want to learn UI design concepts you better be playing games !<br /><br />Happy GamingKumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-67240714761593461292010-03-20T03:45:00.000-07:002010-03-27T01:13:06.398-07:00PatternMaker with colors !<div>Shown below are some of my quick creations in PatternMaker aka Rangoli app(screenshots)</div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S6Su0GK-NJI/AAAAAAAACNQ/6oTSFml3tW8/s1600-h/pattern6.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 218px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S6Su0GK-NJI/AAAAAAAACNQ/6oTSFml3tW8/s320/pattern6.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5450673659058205842" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S6Suz6jZumI/AAAAAAAACNI/idGSBSDKu-M/s1600-h/pattern5.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 218px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S6Suz6jZumI/AAAAAAAACNI/idGSBSDKu-M/s320/pattern5.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5450673655939447394" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S6SuzaUCTFI/AAAAAAAACNA/cUVjlKKrkBk/s1600-h/pattern4.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 218px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S6SuzaUCTFI/AAAAAAAACNA/cUVjlKKrkBk/s320/pattern4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5450673647285062738" border="0" /></a>Click on image below to open the app.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.kumarahir.com/pattern/imitate_v2.swf" target="_blank"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S6SpTfRgUTI/AAAAAAAACM4/oMOtXSNEXo0/s320/pattern3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5450667601302671666" border="0" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(85, 26, 139);"><u><br /></u></span></div>And now comes PatternMaker with Color options. Though the currently colors are not user configurable. Each time you click on the shape you get a random color. I have intentionally kept the tool/application simpler in operation to keep down the complexity of having too many options. Though I am working at making the color selection more simpler than just adding a colorPicker !<div>The undo has become a little buggy after color change is introduced. Will fix it soon.</div><div>One most important feature that the app is lagging is save option. Will be done in next release. Till then you have to resort to printscreen option.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-83703942072911053842010-03-10T21:13:00.000-08:002010-03-11T22:23:26.891-08:00Surprise in a Idea<div>What does Sixth sense, Agatha Christie, Gumnaam, Byomkesh Bakshi have in common? Well ofcourse they are related by suspense and mystery. But how are they related to the title in the post?</div><div><br /></div><div>Read on ... </div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S5ndtcaVhNI/AAAAAAAACMo/TbXCeE74DyA/s1600-h/stock-photo-hand-holding-red-puzzle-piece-22363732.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 204px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S5ndtcaVhNI/AAAAAAAACMo/TbXCeE74DyA/s320/stock-photo-hand-holding-red-puzzle-piece-22363732.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5447628997071832274" /></a><br /></div>In my <a href="http://kernel-kumar.blogspot.com/2010/02/making-idea-stick.html">earlier post</a> about stickiness of an Idea, I talked about the book "Made to stick" and its contents in nutshell. Digging further deep in the topic and exploring the unexpectedness part of the message/idea, I have few take aways. These are not direct sentences from the book, the essence can however match.<div><br /></div><div>Inculcating surprise factor in speech is necessary to retain attention of audience over a period of time. Whenever I come across such to-dos I try to find out logical process or method for it. And it has to be practical one so that it can be practiced right away. What can be a better way to learn these things then to practice it?</div><div><br /></div><div>One method for creating surprise in a speech/idea that I have discovered (or rather a result of amalgamation of watching movies/reading novels) is to show micro/unit parts of the entire plot, one by one and showing the entire map at once to the audience. Let the audience make connection. By doing this we are providing context to the audience in parts and when we show the entire map at once we create gap in their knowledge. The effort of making connection between parts is left to them and that's what intrigues them in the story.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now something directly from the book. "Break the mental model of your audience and give clues to fix it".</div><div><br /></div><div>It's like a jigsaw puzzle, just that in the beginning you are not sure what you are going to end up with.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have not invented this method. It's been employed by many successful directors and script writers of famous movies. Does the opening of this post now make sense? Well most of the suspense and mystery movies are framed like this only. And people remember these stories longer. It sticks to their mind !</div>Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-67852319174098263242010-03-03T23:36:00.000-08:002010-03-04T01:55:30.205-08:00Pattern with reset button<div><div>Edit:</div><div>Check out the granular undo buttons. Now you can undo the the orientation/rotation of individual tile and undo actions in Pattern Unit work area.</div><div><br /></div><div>Colors on the way !</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.kumarahir.com/pattern/imitate.swf" target="_blank"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 299px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S49kKG4rVBI/AAAAAAAACMg/0J9qCqO3v6E/s400/pattern2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444680599324021778" /></a>We do make mistakes, hence we need a reset button. Undo is on the way.<div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-75646479607494618492010-03-03T06:28:00.001-08:002010-03-03T06:31:09.146-08:00Sorry under maintenance<span style="font-size:180%;">Under Maintenance!</span><br /><br />I just chose to move few things here and there on my blog and see what it has done. Blogger has started giving pains to me. The only reason I have stuck to this is that it has flash support. I can embed my flash files in it. Otherwise I would have switched to Wordpress long ago.<br /><br />Now I've to rework on this thing and get it done again !<br /><br />You can still access my old post with this default theme.Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-23498981753757476542010-03-03T03:32:00.000-08:002010-03-03T07:34:51.754-08:00Rangoli / Pattern builder<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://908262492559579180-a-1802744773732722657-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/kumarahir/imitate.swf?attachauth=ANoY7coJ-2kwYGDU_DGOb4XdwcFM2RpeJAMyKeczTmbzPaJqoYoNGgwFn3qqORhTTSX_VtclrBfZ7CswU7EtnZlVPRpy-NVxqJCZKZMvKBh5RLXekMp-ylScOICG-VeJ9mndORB8cS1trAdj5yc3lUrzhITCdVB0XEFjfRwmF9eLZmemR01PdtxJV7x_Qt7oI19MagySk76v&amp;attredirects=0"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S45J7zGwMGI/AAAAAAAACMY/0dLRrocQYZs/s400/pattern1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444370291217150050" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I had a random thought on patterns when an idea of building an application struck me. </div><div style="text-align: left;">Rangoli is an inherent part of any Indian festival. Specially Diwali and Onam (I don't know when it is made in other regions of India). One of the peculiar feature of Rangoli (traditionally) is that it follows a proper geometric form. Entire area is divided in grid and the dots are joined in certain way to form a pattern. I have used the same idea with a little tweak. I have added to it the feature of tiling. Imagine a tile with some unit pattern drawn on it. If lot of such tiles are placed besides each other they give rise to a an overall beautiful pattern. Each tile may have a different orientation. You can play around with the unit of pattern and see the entire pattern form take shape.</div><div>You can try your hands on the application here<a href="http://908262492559579180-a-1802744773732722657-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/kumarahir/imitate.swf?attachauth=ANoY7coJ-2kwYGDU_DGOb4XdwcFM2RpeJAMyKeczTmbzPaJqoYoNGgwFn3qqORhTTSX_VtclrBfZ7CswU7EtnZlVPRpy-NVxqJCZKZMvKBh5RLXekMp-ylScOICG-VeJ9mndORB8cS1trAdj5yc3lUrzhITCdVB0XEFjfRwmF9eLZmemR01PdtxJV7x_Qt7oI19MagySk76v&amp;attredirects=0"> >></a></div><div>It's still under constant upgrade. Let me know your thoughts on this.</div>Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-43069239429921394822010-02-23T07:19:00.000-08:002010-03-01T19:37:51.094-08:00What have I learnt from my 1 yr old?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S4yH51lXrZI/AAAAAAAACMI/qE6W7adIs5s/s1600-h/DSCN9551.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S4yH51lXrZI/AAAAAAAACMI/qE6W7adIs5s/s320/DSCN9551.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5443875477290200466" /></a><br /><div><br /></div>Infancy is the most fascinating and wonderful time in the entire life. You know nothing and you are trying to grasp your environment.<div>The way kids interact with their surrounding objects and environment is the most natural way. Or should I say they expect the objects to behave in certain way when they interact with them. Well this is true for all of us of any age. But by now we have gathered lot of information about world that half of our problem is solved.</div><div>However this not at all means they we design products keeping the mindset and knowledge base of a kid in mind. Don't we design keeping the age group in mind?</div><div>The question is if we design products for certain age-groups the product usage for that age group is over after some time. If the product doesn't evolve with time, with the persona (representative of target audience), the product is going to fade and user is going to switch to next generation, probably a different product.</div><div>The way human brain evolves with time, the product should also age and gather knowledge to supplement the needs over a period of time.</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, I digressed from the topic a bit ! My 1.5 year old looks at every object around her with curiosity and expects it to behave in some way. I found some objects to be intuitive enough to her, or may be she has learnt this from observing. Bangles, she takes and directly put them in her hand. But the next moment she puts them in her ankle. Well though bangles are not supposed to be worn in ankles (anklets are supposed to be worn) the very form of bangles suggest her to put it in some holding form. This is apt nature of a tangible static product. A well designed product will suggest its user of how to use it.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, Digital products and interfaces pose a challenge, in a way that they have lot of hidden forms. They reveal lot of pages/forms as we use them. But what if they take the form of the current requirement of the user?</div><div>The gist of the post is to design products that evolve like kids, few trial and error, learning, gathering knowledge base and adapting to the user and not vice versa.</div>Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-84526112413715502802010-02-22T21:18:00.000-08:002010-02-22T21:56:01.098-08:00Finger is not a mouse<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S4NrAAe_-YI/AAAAAAAACL8/wdlob9bkqZU/s1600-h/touch.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 202px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S4NrAAe_-YI/AAAAAAAACL8/wdlob9bkqZU/s320/touch.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441310422667884930" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Well you must have have guessed almost correctly on what I meant by the title of the post. With an onset of touchscreen devices and cheaper technology support (Ipad) we are going to see a rush of applications for the NEW genre of interaction. However we can argue that the interaction model was already there in terms of touchpad in laptop and wacom tablets. Only difference is now we'll be interacting with the content directly !<br />But wait a second. We will discover some gaps in the granularity of interaction model of mouse/pointer and finger touch.<br />Starting with basic question, and coders will get it quickly. What are different events that we code for a mouse?<br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 255);">mousemove - trapping the movement of mouse without click</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 255);">mouseover - when mouse moves over an area of target object</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 255);">mouseout - when mouse leaves the area of a target object<br /></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);">mousemove - trapping the movement of mouse with click</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);">mouseclick/mousepress - when a target object is clicked by mouse</span> <span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);">mouserelease - when a mouse is released after clicking a target object</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(192, 192, 192);">The reason of coloring the events differently is to make the interaction models in touch application and mouse supported application apparent. You can't have the first 3 interaction models in a touch application. You need to have a visible pointer all the time in the application that control those events. In touch application the pointer is activated only when you touch</span><span style="color: rgb(192, 192, 192);"> the surface, but that becomes your click event.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(192, 192, 192);">Hence the fundamental interaction model is violated. For certain application and websites first three are the core of interaction design. And if they were to be ported on a touch supporting software, they need to be completely redesigned.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(192, 192, 192);">And now just think of Adobe Flash support on Ipad/Iphone/Itouch. If tomorrow Ipad/Iphone/Itouch has Flash support and users open the site that uses the first three interaction mentioned above, they are going to go mad on why the site/application is not working. Do we then invest of designing and building those sites/applications again? That will be and expensive affair in terms of cost and effort.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(192, 192, 192);">As an Interaction Designer and a Flash Developer this comes as frustration to me to design and develop the same content for different devices. Well there seems to be a unique solution to this though.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(192, 192, 192);">Discovering ......</span>Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-20912937368339005982010-02-03T22:29:00.000-08:002010-02-03T22:49:55.357-08:00Making an Idea STICK<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S2prux5VPUI/AAAAAAAACKg/rN_Q3m-LMos/s1600-h/stick.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 246px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S2prux5VPUI/AAAAAAAACKg/rN_Q3m-LMos/s320/stick.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5434274351787883842" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Well the title of the post is attributed to the book I am reading, "<a href="http://www.madetostick.com/">Made to Stick</a>" by Chip and Dan Heath. The authors are brothers majored in Psychology, one is a researcher and other a practitioner, as told in book. The book is about getting your message across and making it stick - remembered by your customers and make an impression.<br />I am just through the first chapter of the book and I have started seeing difference in whatever I write and speak.<br />The authors start with a context of the book asking one simple question - Why do we remember some ideas/sentences and its details easily and have difficulty in getting across some wonderful ideas? And the book is all about rephrasing your ideas to make them stick.<br />First principle is SIMPLE. I mean your idea should be simple. Well I am talking about the language of the idea and not the idea itself. It should be simple enough to be understood by any layman and should not have any room for guessing. It should be useful in making any decision in future by anybody in your company. This is why companies have vision and mission statements. However most of the times they are loaded with lot of ambiguities and multiple focus.<br />And there are in total 6 to make your idea stick.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">S</span>imple<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">U</span>nexpectedness<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">C</span>oncreteness<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">C</span>redibility<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">E</span>motions<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">S</span>tories<br />If before delivering any message we check it against these principles we are for sure to get it across to the audience and make it stick.Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-80540157059527853482010-01-18T23:54:00.000-08:002010-01-18T23:55:20.013-08:00Mahawar game testing<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S1VlWxP6mcI/AAAAAAAACFk/T02FZM5Tp5g/s1600-h/maha.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 265px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S1VlWxP6mcI/AAAAAAAACFk/T02FZM5Tp5g/s400/maha.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5428356367716620738" border="0" /></a>Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-79888840441732140282010-01-16T19:36:00.000-08:002010-02-03T22:29:11.007-08:00Cross-Geo team<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S2pod9pdJmI/AAAAAAAACKY/-rc9u9AE8pI/s1600-h/team.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 380px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/S2pod9pdJmI/AAAAAAAACKY/-rc9u9AE8pI/s400/team.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5434270764349859426" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Gone are the days when team members used to be at one place and they worked together on one project. Well I should have written about this long back, may be before I started my graduation. Coz this scenario has been in existence since the IT boom. Many many products like video-conferencing, tele-conferences, online collaborative tools exists today to bridge the gap of communication between team members located at different geographical locations.<br />This model works best when you have a shareable component viz. code, word document or something more textual. However communication requiring rich media to be shared becomes difficult.<br />Say for example designers located in different geographical locations and working on the same project module. Each designer come up with their own set of designs, however and when it comes to inculcate them into one, it becomes difficult in composing one design. There are online softwares available like Google docs, Zoho, Uhuroo which enables multiple editors work on the same document, but they are limited by the textual changes. An editor which allows graphical changes on the same sketch/image by different editors is yet to come. Another thought that cam to my mind is whether designers need such an editor?Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-27315203974695095492010-01-11T00:40:00.000-08:002010-01-11T00:42:05.347-08:00Blank PostKumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-67523868938052211112009-07-27T23:23:00.001-07:002009-07-27T23:35:17.020-07:00Wireframes<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Wireframe - this term may not be new to Interaction designers, Usability practitioners and lately project managers. However very little known to root level engineers (mostly UI developers). Well I wasn't familiar to this myself when I was a developer. But we have been practicing this since the start of our projects. We scribble roughly on paper on how UI of a product is going to look like - mostly layout and navigation. However we don't pay attention to minute details of how user would want to look at the product and navigate through it. It was more from system and implementation point of view. Well many of these things got cleared during my study at IDC.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">So I slightly went off the topic. The reason for this post is that I just want to highlight some of the key benefits of wireframes. I was reading an article by </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.motiontek.com/">Michael </a><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">on Adobe for using Fireworks to do wireframing and export the design into css and html (that's a great relief for developers).</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Following is the link </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.adobe.com/devnet/fireworks/articles/wireframing.html">>></a><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Michael list downs some of the key benefits of Wireframing. An excerpt from his article.</span></span><ul style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><blockquote><li><span style="font-size:100%;">Wireframes help you communicate the fact that your design is a work in progress—and therefore subject to change based on feedback</span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">Wireframes help ensure that the functional design is evaluated separately from the visual design</span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">Wireframes don't become dated like comps, so you can reuse those unchanged dialog box sketches in your version 2.0 functional specifications even though you have completely reskinned the application</span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">You can create wireframes much faster than you can design high-quality graphics—and it doesn't require much artistic skill</span></li><li><span style="font-size:100%;">Using wireframes instead of comps for initial design reviews helps you to avoid the inevitable "please make the logo bigger" request until the functionality has been decided</span></li></blockquote></ul><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /><br /></span>Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-14832707527515450312009-07-22T23:00:00.001-07:002009-07-22T23:11:09.703-07:003D movies on youtubeAnd the day has come when common man is not away from watching 3D movies right on his desktop/laptop or home TV. Well thanks to youtube which has started supporting 3d movies.<br />See some of them in action below.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/Smf-6WPxEcI/AAAAAAAAB_8/lISqsGzMGo0/s1600-h/yt.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 294px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/Smf-6WPxEcI/AAAAAAAAB_8/lISqsGzMGo0/s320/yt.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361534159765443010" border="0" /></a><br />This is truly an epic in video watching history on internetKumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34511806.post-64459501902016542672009-06-21T03:17:00.000-07:002009-06-21T03:22:40.780-07:00And the day has come - Mahawar<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/Sj4J3n2yOTI/AAAAAAAABv8/Hz5ejqgPFKY/s1600-h/mahawar.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 216px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AgUBwV5M6E0/Sj4J3n2yOTI/AAAAAAAABv8/Hz5ejqgPFKY/s320/mahawar.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349724258558949682" /></a><br /><div><br /></div>The day I have been eagerly waiting for has come.<div>Mahawar - our game is out in markte. It's being sold and marketed by Funskool India Ltd.</div><div>Check it out online at <a href="http://funskoolindia.com/category_detail.php?id=5&amp;a=876&amp;sub=IIT%20GAMES">Funskool site</a>.</div><div>Thought the graphics in the game are not upto the mark that we delivered and the game play also seem to have been tweaked a bit to suit the market and manufacturing, I am anxious to get myself a copy of it and play.</div>Kumar Ahirhttps://plus.google.com/109392833714646261288noreply@blogger.com10